Anton Chekov's 'Cherry Orchard' opens Friday

Anton Chekov's final masterwork "The Cherry Orchard" opens Friday in a University of Florida production in the McGuire Pavilion's Constans Theatre.

In the waning days of the Russian aristocracy, Madame Ranevskaya and her family struggle to stay afloat as the tide shifts against entitled riches.

Paralyzed by change, the upper-class family turns a deaf ear to Lopakhin, played by Michael Toth, the serf-turned-businessman who pleads with the family to convert their estate and sell their beloved cherry orchard to salvage their property.

"It's a lot of what we experience in our lifetime when the older generation can get lost by not being able to listen," says director Mikell Pinkney.

Pinkney's direction of the Jean-Claude van Itallie translation folds the play's comic aspects in with the tragic just as Chekov, one of the most influential dramatists of all time, would have wanted it.

"In our sensibilities the play is more of what might be called a 'dramedy' with moments of poignant seriousness. It's humorous," Pinkney says about the tone.

The actors must contend with the conflicted anguish of the characters as they grapple with change.

"We're trying to find the human-ness in each of the characters and the honesty of the natural realities in Chekov," Pinkney says. "I tell my cast to indulge in the emotional content of the play and the depth of the background," says Pinkney.

Madame Ranevskaya, played by Robyn Berg, clings desperately to the ancient regime as it languishes. "One of my particular challenges has been letting go of my research and past productions and finding the humanity of the role and to bring a human element to it," Berg said. "So much of Chekov is about humanity."

The proverbial sand escapes through Ranevskaya's hands that clutch to a crumbling reality and the famous cherry orchard is cut down, severing the family from their czarist Russian roots in a stunning visual metaphor.

"She continues to hang on to every last bit of hope that she has to assuage those wounds and to calm the storm within. My character hangs on to the hope that her orchard is going to be saved so that her life can be saved," says Berg.

Ranevskaya's brother, Gayev, comically seeks solace in playing billiards as his world is collapsing. Denis McCourt, who plays Gayev, looked within himself to internalize the character. "I think there's a level of humor in seeing all of these people in this world with some pretty tragic circumstances," McCourt says. "Playing the character himself is a truly liberating experience. I see so much of myself in him that I've brought myself to the role."

As directed by Constantin Stanislavski, "The Cherry Orchard" debuted in 1904 at the Moscow Art Theatre, which came to be known as the House of Chekov. Freudian thought was everywhere at the time. And thus, psychological realism for the theatre was born.

"Freud and Jung were introducing their psychological concepts to the world and Chekov took the theatricality of it and put it up on stage for other people to see," says Berg.

Pinkney's direction puts Chekov's play on a much faster track, however.

"In the time frame, Stanislavski was about slow, emotional drama, which was different for the classical mode, but for us we're making it much faster," Pinkney says about the pace. "We're still playing the realism but we're accelerating the play to a much faster pace, so the clarity will still come through."

Russia as depicted in the Constans Theatre will reflect a more vast and less-sardined set than one might expect from a Chekov production.

"We don't need a full stage. We have a very post-modern design with a very simple amount of furniture needed to fill in the gaps," Pinkney says. "We try to mix the old in with the new," Pinkney says.

Efforts to update the Edwardian setting will crop up in the form of watch fobs and accompaniment from Sly and the Family Stone.